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<journal-meta>
<journal-id journal-id-type="publisher">ISPRS-Archives</journal-id>
<journal-title-group>
<journal-title>The International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences</journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="publisher">ISPRS-Archives</abbrev-journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="nlm-ta">Int. Arch. Photogramm. Remote Sens. Spatial Inf. Sci.</abbrev-journal-title>
</journal-title-group>
<issn pub-type="epub">2194-9034</issn>
<publisher><publisher-name>Copernicus Publications</publisher-name>
<publisher-loc>Göttingen, Germany</publisher-loc>
</publisher>
</journal-meta>
<article-meta>
<article-id pub-id-type="doi">10.5194/isprs-archives-XLIX-B3-2026-753-2026</article-id>
<title-group>
<article-title>Bioaerosol-driven heavy metal deposition and Biospheric response: A remote sensing-assisted Phytoremediation study in the Pin Valley National Park, North-Western Himalayas</article-title>
</title-group>
<contrib-group><contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Galodha</surname>
<given-names>Abhinav</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0180-1673</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Sharma</surname>
<given-names>Deepika</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff3">
<sup>3</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
</contrib-group><aff id="aff1">
<label>1</label>
<addr-line>School of Interdisciplinary Research (SIRe), Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, New Delhi, India</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff2">
<label>2</label>
<addr-line>Geospatial Engineering, School of Engineering (SoE), Newcastle University, United Kingdom</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff3">
<label>3</label>
<addr-line>Department of Botany, Himachal Pradesh University (HPU), Shimla, Himachal Pradesh, India</addr-line>
</aff>
<pub-date pub-type="epub">
<day>30</day>
<month>07</month>
<year>2026</year>
</pub-date>
<volume>XLIX-B3-2026</volume>
<fpage>753</fpage>
<lpage>765</lpage>
<permissions>
<copyright-statement>Copyright: &#x000a9; 2026 Abhinav Galodha</copyright-statement>
<copyright-year>2026</copyright-year>
<license license-type="open-access">
<license-p>This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this licence, visit <ext-link ext-link-type="uri"  xlink:href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/</ext-link></license-p>
</license>
</permissions>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://isprs-archives.copernicus.org/articles/XLIX-B3-2026/753/2026/isprs-archives-XLIX-B3-2026-753-2026.html">This article is available from https://isprs-archives.copernicus.org/articles/XLIX-B3-2026/753/2026/isprs-archives-XLIX-B3-2026-753-2026.html</self-uri>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://isprs-archives.copernicus.org/articles/XLIX-B3-2026/753/2026/isprs-archives-XLIX-B3-2026-753-2026.pdf">The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://isprs-archives.copernicus.org/articles/XLIX-B3-2026/753/2026/isprs-archives-XLIX-B3-2026-753-2026.pdf</self-uri>
<abstract>
<p>High-altitude cold-desert ecosystems in the western Himalayas are increasingly exposed to atmospherically transported heavy metals, yet the bioaerosol-mediated deposition pathway and its coupling with biospheric response remain poorly quantified. This study presents a multi-scale framework linking satellite-derived Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD) to field-measured sediment metal concentrations (Cr, Ni, As, Cd, Pb) and vegetation stress indices across Pin Valley National Park (PV-NP), Himachal Pradesh, India. We integrate two field campaigns (2022, 2023) comprising ICP-MS analysis of water, sediment, and bioaerosol samples with a 25-year Google Earth Engine time-series archive (2000&amp;ndash;2024) of MODIS and Sentinel-2/Landsat-derived spectral indices. Empirical Mode Decomposition followed by PCA&amp;mdash;adapted from Antarctic ice-sheet studies&amp;mdash;extracts inter-annual variability revealing dominant 4&amp;ndash;8 year periodicities broadly consistent with ENSO teleconnections. Leave-one-out cross-validated (LOOCV) machine-learning models, benchmarked with 1000-replicate bootstrap confidence intervals on &lt;em&gt;R&lt;sup&gt;2&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;sub&gt;LOO&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/em&gt; and Monte Carlo error propagation, evaluate the predictive capacity of remote-sensing features for sediment metal concentrations. Results indicate that AOD and its 30-day lag carry contamination-relevant signal (Cr&amp;ndash;Ni dominant) but predictive skill at &lt;em&gt;n&lt;/em&gt; = 11&amp;ndash;14 is bounded by sample size: bootstrap 95% CIs cross zero for all ten metal&amp;ndash;year targets and the strongest target (Ni-2022) yields permutation &lt;em&gt;p&lt;/em&gt; = 0.061. At the site scale, hotspot clusters (PLI &amp;ge; &lt;em&gt;Q&lt;sub&gt;75&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/em&gt;) show directional shifts across six vegetation indices consistent with metal-induced stress (&amp;Delta;NDVI = &amp;minus;0.004, &amp;Delta;NDRE = &amp;minus;0.017, &amp;Delta;PSRI = +0.049, &amp;Delta;LST = +1.64&lt;sup&gt;◦&lt;/sup&gt;C, pooled 2022&amp;ndash;2023), but at &lt;em&gt;n&lt;sub&gt;h&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/em&gt; = 7 vs. &lt;em&gt;n&lt;sub&gt;nh&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;/em&gt; = 18 individual contrasts do not reach &lt;em&gt;p&lt;/em&gt; &amp;lt; 0.05 (joint sign-test &lt;em&gt;p&lt;/em&gt; = 0.031). Site-level LST&amp;ndash;NDVI Pearson correlation is positive (&lt;em&gt;r&lt;/em&gt; = +0.46, &lt;em&gt;p&lt;/em&gt; = 0.020, pooled), reflecting elevation co-control in this energy-limited cold desert&amp;mdash; an inversion of the canonical water-limited LST&amp;ndash;NDVI coupling. This integrated atmosphere&amp;ndash;lithosphere&amp;ndash;biosphere approach advances remote-sensing methodologies for environmental management in fragile Himalayan ecosystems while honestly delimiting the small-sample regime.</p>
</abstract>
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